Fairy Tales, Now First Collected/Tale 18
TALE XVIII.
THE KIDNAPPERS.
A second account of this nature, he says, I had from a woman to whose offspring the fairies seemed to have taken a particular fancy. The fourth or fifth night after she was delivered of her first child, the family was alarmed with a most terrible cry of fire; on which, every body ran out of the house to see whence it proceeded, not excepting the nurse, who, being as much frighted as the others, made one of the number. The poor woman lay trembling in her bed, alone, unable to help herself, and her back being turned to the infant, saw not that it was taken away by an invisible hand. Those who had left her, having inquired in the neighbourhood, and finding there was no cause for the outcry they had heard, laughed at each other for the mistake; but, as they were going to reenter the house, the poor babe lay on the threshold, and by its cries preserved itself from being trod upon. This exceedingly amazed all that saw it; and, the mother being still in bed, they could ascribe no reason for finding it there; bat having been removed by fairies, who, by their sudden return, had been prevented from carrying it any farther.[1]
About a year after, he says, the same woman was brought to bed of a second child, which had not been born many nights, before a great noise was heard in the house where they keep their cattle. Every body that was stirring ran to see what was the matter, believing that the cows had got loose the nurse was as ready as the rest; but finding all safe, and the barn-door close, immediately returned, but not so suddenly but that the new-born babe was taken out of the bed, as the former had been, and dropped, on their coming, in the middle of the entry. This was enough to prove the fairies had made a second attempt; and the parents, sending for a minister, joined with him in thanksgiving to god, who had twice delivered their children from being taken from them.[2]
But, in the time of her third delivery, every body seemed to have forgot what had happened in the first and second, and on a noise in the cattlehouse, ran out to know what had occasioned it. The nurse was the only person, excepting the woman in the straw, who stayed in the house, nor was she detained through care, or want of curiosity, but by the bonds of sleep, having drunk a little too plentifully the preceding day. The mother, who was broad awake, saw her child lifted. out of the bed, and carried out of the chamber, though she could not see any person touch it; on which she cried out as loud as she could, Nurse! nurse! my child! my child is taken away! but the old woman was too fast [asleep] to be awakened by the noise she made, and the infant was irretrievably gone. When her husband, and those who had accompanied him, returned, they found her wringing her hands, and uttering the most piteous lamentations for the loss of her child; on which, said the husband, looking into the bed, The woman is mad; do not you see the child lies by you? On which she turned, and saw, indeed, something like a child, but far different from her own, which was a very beautiful, fat, well-featured babe; whereas, what was now in the room of it was a poor, lean, withered, deformed creature. It lay quite naked, but the clothes belonging to the child that was exchanged for it lay wrapt up altogether on the bed.
This creature lived with them near the space of nine years, in all which time it eat nothing except a few herbs, nor was ever seen to void any other excrement than water: it neither spoke, nor could stand or go, but seemed enervate in every joint; and in all its actions showed itself to be of the same nature.[3]